Virginia governor’s race

The good people of Virginia are about to get a reward for enduring the sh*tshow that has been playing out in the Commonwealth. They are going to get a tax cut. I’m not sure they deserve it. After all, Virginians elected the Northam-Fairfax-Herring slate. But they did so with imperfect knowledge about the trio, so let’s not be churlish. The tax break affords Virginians $1 billion in relief. According to »

Say what you want about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson. They were a century or two ahead of Virginia Governor Ralph “Coonman” Northam. Sure Washington, Jefferson, Lee, and Jackson owned slaves, as was the practice in Virginia during their times. And yes, Lee and Jackson were key military leaders for the Confederacy. But as far as we know, none of the four ever mocked blacks »

If the only information we had heading into yesterday’s election in Virginia was (1) that Hillary Clinton carried the state by five points and (2) that President Trump’s approval rating in Virginia was 40 percent (compared to 57 percent disapproval), it would have been fairly easy to predict that Republican Ed Gillespie would lose by around 9 points. If, in addition, we recalled that four presidents in a row had »

The shellacking that Democrat Ralph Northam administered to Republican Ed Gillespie in Virginia’s gubernatorial election yesterday is unlike Wagner’s music as described by Mark Twain. It’s not better than it sounds; it’s worse than it sounds. Northam is a generic Democrat and was a colorless candidate. Gillespie is an obviously decent man who knew how to run a statewide race. Northam routed Gillespie in what was thought to be a »

It’s no surprise that Ralph Northam defeated Ed Gillespie. I was surprised, though, that the race wasn’t close, and I think most analysts were surprised that Northam won so comfortably (by at least 8 points, it looks like). With hindsight we can say that this was a race between two uninspiring candidates who needed, somehow, to inspire support. Northam inspired support because of raw hatred for President Trump. Gillespie tried »

A group called the Latino Victory Fund produced an attack ad on Ed Gillespie, the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia. A video featured a pickup truck with a Confederate flag and an Ed Gillespie bumper sticker attempting to run down minority children. After a terrorist immigrant actually did run down innocent people in New York City, the Fund pulled the ad. It had been caught with its pants down. »

In the Virginia governor’s race, Republican Ed Gillespie has attacked Democrat Ralph Northam for casting the deciding vote against legislation that would have banned sanctuary cites in the state. Gillespie received sharp criticism from the left-wing media for injecting the issue into the campaign. The Washington Post accused Gillespie of trying “to harness the xenophobic fervor that propelled Donald Trump to the White House.” It portrayed Northam’s vote on sanctuary »

A group called the Latino Victory Fund produced an attack on Ed Gillespie, the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia. The video (see below) featured a pickup truck with a Confederate flag and an Ed Gillespie bumper sticker attempting to run down minority children. NRO’s Alexandra DeSanctis reports that the Latino Victory Fund pulled the ad yesterday, after a minority immigrant in a truck ran over people in downtown Manhattan. »

If this year’s Virginia governor’s race between Republican Ed Gillespie and Democrat Ralph Northam is a dress rehearsal for 2018, then next year’s congressional races should present quite a spectacle. If you don’t think so, check out this story in the Washington Post called “Bikers for Trump rallies for Gillespie — without Gillespie.” Gillespie narrowly defeated Corey Stewart in the Republican primary. Stewart managed Trump’s campaign in Virginia for a »